Our President, the Great Prevaricator, likes to mislead people. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise. That's what prevaricators do, they mislead. Obama's statements about who pays their "fair share" of taxes have received lots of press, as have Obama's statements about billionaire Warren Buffett paying less in taxes than his secretary. Let's examine these claims.

According to 2010 tax data, the top 1% of earners made about 24% of the national income (if you include capital gains) and paid nearly 40% of the income taxes. Thus the rich, as a group, are paying nearly double their "fair share" according to the data. The Great Prevaricator conveniently forgets to tell us that part.

I know I'm supposed to write about politics here, but I've been having some minor intestinal problems and my doctor told me to avoid stress. He also scheduled a colonoscopy for me, to which I replied, "I thought you said you wanted me to AVOID stress !".

And then one of my "friends" e-mailed me the following column from Dave Barry. This is too funny not to share, though it's somewhat less funny when you have a colonscopy looming on the horizon. Without further ado, here's Mr. Barry:

After watching President Obama's State Of The Union (SOTU) speech last night, I have to say, the man simply astounds me. Obama is the ultimate politician, a very good performer. I have to give him that much. He knows how to give a speech. They say politics is the art of manipulation (or maybe it's just me saying it). Obama has that game down pat. He knows how to tell people what they want to hear, and more importantly, he knows how to leave out the parts people don't want to hear, the parts Obama doesn't want the people to know.

If you had arrived in America for the first time yesterday and listened to Obama's SOTU, you'd think things were going really well in America. If all you listened to was this President, you'd think he has done a fabulous job, because he told you he has. You wouldn't know how deeply we are in debt. You wouldn't know we have record deficits. You wouldn't know our entitlement programs are unfunded. You wouldn't know unemployment is so high. You wouldn't know our public schools are falling short. You wouldn't know our health care costs are still skyrocketing. You wouldn't know we're on an unsustainable fiscal path. You wouldn't know the federal government is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends. You wouldn't know Obama's net record on private sector job creation is below zero. You wouldn't know the federal government is spending more money than at any other time in American history barring WWII. You wouldn't know we have record numbers of people on government assistance. You wouldn't know energy costs are rising. You wouldn't know so many people had simply given up looking for work. You wouldn't know any of these things, and that's my first major problem with Obama's speech. He managed to give a State Of The Union speech without ever leveling with the American people about the actual state of the union.

Voter ID frauds: A few weeks ago, I excoriated the Obama Justice Dept. for blocking South Carolina's voter ID law. Every time I mention voter ID laws, liberals tell me voter ID is racist (because voter ID is applied equally to all voters, by definition it cannot be racist). Liberals also tell me there is no voter fraud problem to justify the implementation of voter ID. As usual, liberals are lying:

In trying to decide who should be our next President, we first have to ask if our current President deserves a second term. This should be based upon his performance in office, not on the political party to which he belongs.